Most earrings, broaches, necklaces, and other such ornaments are crafted using precious metals or other such materials that facilitate generation of luster. In addition, stratagems are employed at such ornaments to heighten visual attractiveness and decorativeness as an ornament, surfaces thereof being polished and also being imparted with complex shape or the like to constitute jewelry members and produce sensations of luster and/or brilliance in the viewer. And as one stratagem to further heighten visual attractiveness and decorativeness of a jewelry member in an ornament, the jewelry member of the ornament is such that precious metals or other such materials that facilitate generation of luster are employed in combination with gemstone(s). Known among the gemstones that may be employed here are those which, regardless of whether they are natural materials or artificial materials, have surfaces that are typically well-polished, and which are therefore capable of producing strong sensations of luster and/or brilliance in viewers and which, moreover, depending on material, may have been cut in complex fashion to constitute multifaceted surfaces, as a result of which it is not only the case that light is reflected from the surface thereof but also that light which has entered the interior thereof is refracted in complex fashion and undergoes diffuse reflection to produce the attribute of fire in complex fashion. As a result of adoption of such stratagems, by making it possible to produce in the viewer not only the superficial sensations of brilliance and/or luster but also the more profound sensation of fire and so forth, it is possible to employ these to generate the visual attractiveness and decorativeness that are desirable in ornaments.
However, the foregoing ornaments have conventionally had structures in which the jewelry member is fixed to the ornament. These have therefore been lacking in variation when viewed from the same location, the direction of the light reflected thereto from the jewelry member of the ornament tending not to change unless the angle at which light is incident on the jewelry member of the ornament changes, or the person wearing the ornament moves, or the person viewing the ornament alters his or her position. For this reason, in situations where such movement or variation has been lacking, while the viewer of the ornament may have been able to sense the luster and/or brilliance of the ornament, there has been inadequate ability to adequately sense the fire thereof, and it has not always been the case that the beauty thereof was able to be brought forth to the desired agree and made manifest. It has been hard to avoid situations in which visual attractiveness and decorativeness as an ornament have been impaired rather than enhanced, resulting in concern that the perceived value thereof may have been reduced.
Various proposals have therefore been made in attempts to achieve a structure in which the jewelry member of the ornament is made partially movable with the intention of causing the visual attractiveness and decorativeness of the ornament to be adequately manifested and the value thereof to be thoroughly brought forth.
For example, in the context of a personal accessory, an oscillating ornament has been proposed in which at least a link at one side of a pendent ring attached to an oscillating body having a jewelry member or a suspended loop supported by a human body by way of a plurality of legs, chains, or other such support means is made to have rectangular cross-sectional shape, and a part in linked contact with the paired mate of this rectangular portion is made to have a shape that is sharpened so as to be of convex arcuate cross-sectional shape (see Patent Reference No. 1). This oscillating personal accessory is intended to be such that by causing the load of the jewelry member to be supported by a link comprising a rectangular cross-sectional shape and a convex arcuate cross-sectional shape, any slight movement of the body, slight breeze, or the like is supposed to cause the jewelry member to pivot, as a result of which the brilliance of the jewelry member is supposed to be manifested more than was the case conventionally.
However, with the aforementioned proposed personal accessory, it is difficult to achieve precision high enough to cause the contact region shape at the link to engage in line contact, and so what is substantially surface contact occurs instead. For this reason, contact resistance has in practice been high, and it cannot be said that this has been sufficient for obtaining adequately repeatable swinging of the jewelry member. For this reason, because the visually perceptible fire has been of low frequency and has been weak, and the swinging dies down almost immediately, it still cannot be said that this has been sufficient to permit the visual attractiveness and decorativeness inherent in the jewelry member to be brought forth to the desired agree and made manifest.
Furthermore, in the context of a personal accessory, an oscillating personal accessory has been proposed in which cross-sectional shapes of respective inner circumferential portions of a coupling fixture and a coupled fixture, which are arcuate or ring-like and which are in mutual contact, are made to have peak-like shapes provided with linear ridges (see Patent Reference No. 2). With the goal of obtaining a line contact state by causing parts in linked contact to incorporate a structure having peak-like shapes provided with linear ridges, this is intended reduce contact resistance and to produce an effect whereby the swinging sensitivity of the jewelry member is heightened.
However, with this oscillating personal accessory, because the coupling and coupled fixtures both have arcuate or ring-like shapes, in the event that a force is applied thereto that would produce swinging that would exceed the angular range of a sloped surface relative to the suspended jewelry member, the part for suspending the jewelry member would itself, in that state and without swinging, slide in lateral fashion toward the front, toward the back, toward the left, or toward the right, as a result of which there are many restrictions on the direction in which the swinging may be applied, there is loss of the oscillatory energy that has been applied thereto, swinging does not occur, and so forth, and as many situations are observed in which swinging tends not occur, this has been inadequate as a personal accessory for causing swinging to occur in stable and continuous fashion. In this way, because the frequency with which swinging occurs also decreases, the fire produced by the jewelry member becomes weaker overall, and due to the fact that the time over which swinging can be sustained is short and so forth, the situation has been such that the expected visual attractiveness and decorativeness have not been adequately manifested but have instead been impaired.
Furthermore, with oscillating personal accessories having such means, while it has been possible with each to produce swinging in a particular direction, such as the front-to-back direction or the left-to-right direction, each has had its own idiosyncrasies with respect to manner of swinging. In other words, when the direction of the force applied to the jewelry member comes from a variety of directions, a number of disadvantages will reveal themselves in obvious fashion. That is, due to the fact that the structure is such that the part for suspending the jewelry member and a retainer at the ornamental body are linked through surface contact or line contact, when the angle about which rotation occurs is large, there being a tendency for friction to occur, constraints become apparent as movement of the jewelry member is restricted. This being the case, for a person visually perceiving the jewelry member of the ornament from a direction other than the front of the ornament, the fire produced by the jewelry member is difficult to notice; or if the fire can be noticed, from a direction other than the front, it will be found that it only lasts a short time before it disappears. And even where, to address this, design has been carried out with the goal of producing fire by causing light incident thereon to be refracted in all directions as by cutting when the jewelry member is a diamond, because constraints on movement are large, it being difficult to appreciate the visual attractiveness and decorativeness thereof from a wide range of directions, it remains difficult to say that this has made it possible for the inherent visual attractiveness and decorativeness with which it is endowed to have been brought forth and made manifest.
As another mechanism therefor, in the context of a personal accessory, an oscillating personal accessory has been proposed in which a jewelry member is suspended by a retaining fixture after the fashion of gymnastic rings from two points to the left and right diagonally above the center of the ornamental item, the body of the ornamental item being arranged so as to be inclined slightly diagonally upward, with the expectation that this will facilitate oscillation of the jewelry member (see, for example, Patent Reference No. 3).
However, because this oscillating personal accessory has a structure in which a jewelry member is supported as a result of being suspended from two points to the left and right diagonally thereabove, oscillation thereof is restricted to the direction of rotation about the axis formed by where it is held in place from the left and right. This being the case, the directions in which oscillation can be imparted thereto are limited, and as rotation to the left and right is difficult, being unable to engage in rotation to the left and right, swinging in that direction is small and is not sustained.
Moreover, while fire generated by a jewelry member produced as a result of minute swinging can be visually perceived when the person who is visually perceiving the jewelry member is directly facing the jewelry member, difficulty occurs in attempting to visually perceive the luster, brilliance, and fire generated by the jewelry member when the person who is visually perceiving the jewelry member does not directly face the jewelry member but is viewing it from the side or from a diagonal direction, and so its visual attractiveness and decorativeness as oscillating personal accessory have not been adequately satisfactory. For example, where the personal accessory is employed near the ear as is the case with an earring or stud earring, because the swinging member would be located to the side of the face, a person located in front of the wearer would likely find it difficult to directly face the jewelry member, and so one could not easily expect to be able to adequately catch sight of the fire.
As described above, with the ornaments having movable jewelry members that have been proposed to date, because oscillations are easily interrupted, because there is directionality to the directions in which swinging can occur, and because there is limited tendency to oscillate, the structure has not been such as to permit the luster, brilliance, and fire generated from the movable jewelry member to be visually perceived adequately and for a long time from a wide variety of directions in stable fashion, and from the standpoint of a structure permitting the desired visual attractiveness of the ornament to be manifested regardless of which direction it is viewed from, these have still not provided adequate satisfaction. Further improvement is therefore to be desired.